Both cash and futures broke 350 psychological resistance and continued to soar to the week-high of 378.0 on Thursday and futures volume were encouraging which broke the highest daily volume of 9,013 contracts. It seems promising but profit taking activities started hovering as both futures and cash market slided in the afternoon session on the same day.

August futures closed at 321.5 on Friday, a discount of 2.56 index points compared to the underlying of 324.06. This 9% drop from previous day reacted accordingly as investors still felt uneasy on the outlook of the economy.  

To recap,  total contracts traded for the week were 30,290 contracts, an daily average of 6,058 contracts. The increased in volume might contributed to the new trading hours of starting 15 minutes earlier which took effect on Monday, August 17,1998. The 20-day volatility stayed above 60% level. Total open interest stayed above 30,000 but with less activities on next month contract.